There was this whole chain of year-end thoughts in my head, when boxes of mutton puffs and plum cake were placed under my nose. My noble thoughts were of course hopelessly left floundering in heavenly aroma.

Now, I shall try and rescue them.

Have been browsing Facebook for the last few days. Why exactly I don’t know. Maybe I have had lesser work to do and more time to fill. Tonnes, literally, of photographs of sunglassed, smiling faces stuck cheek-to-cheek, weddings, travels, sitting rooms, dining rooms, food on the dining table, cats, dogs, cars, homes… everything that can possibly fit into a camera frame has been clicked and is up there. It’s spellbinding what digital cameras can do to our lives, and those around us. It’s like living in a shop window.

On a personal note, I am feeling itchy. No, I have been having a bath everyday, there are no bugs in my bed and my skin’s doing just fine. The itch is somewhere inside. The last one year has been the fastest in my life. And I don’t think Bombay’s pace has anything to do with it really (I am not part of the rush hour, I don’t get pushed in and out of trains and usually have relatively leisurely journeys, I walk to office). So what is it that took up all the time when I wasn’t paying attention?

Again, I don’t know. The only excuses – I can call them reasons if I am in the mood to console myself – that I can think of is: I was settling in – to a new job, a new city, a new house, a new life. And now that none of that is new anymore – and have hence depleted my meager stock of justifications – it is high time I scratch that itch.

Unformed shards of thoughts that swim around somewhere have been poking me. It’s time to put together the – very clichéd – kaleidoscope.

I have finally found evidence that I might, just might, become a writer one day!

Browsing through the Guardian website yesterday, I chanced upon this article (Author’s mews: writers and their cats) that spoke of how many of the famous authors (man, woman) have always been known to have cats. Curled up somewhere within the photo frame – on the author’s lap, on the neighbouring couch, on the carpet – is an “unprotesting feline”.

With more than a dozen such (not always unprotesting) felines that are amply available to populate any photograph of mine, I have at least one of the criteria to make it big in the literary world!

What I found even more reassuring was:

Twentieth century Canadian novelist, journalist and playwright Robertson Davies tried to nail down the attraction [between writers and cats] with his oft-quoted: “Authors like cats because they are such quiet, loveable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.”

Joy, joy!

Is it possible to really want two, completely contradictory things? Meaning, if you get one, you can't possibly get the other. And yet, you find yourself wanting both.

A couple of days ago I was sifting through the photographs of Barack Obama at a ceremony to accept his presidential nomination - or at least that's what I think it was. There have been far too many of these hand-waving, air-kissing campaigns to keep track. What caught me were the expressions on the faces of the audience - or spectators. For it was a spectacle going on up there. The US presidential election is always one.

Women were crying. Men had their hands clasped together, as though in prayer. The First Family hopefuls - man, woman and children - hugged and kissed each other on stage, waved, blew kisses, hugged and kissed some more (I have never understood how a person's credential as a loving spouse and parent can improve his/her capability as a president, but that's not part of the point right now).

Now back to the expressions. They were something similar to what you would see at a gathering of devout believers (regardless of which religion) sitting at the feet of a godman. Reverance writ large on their faces. A friend in the US said: "He's my hero." But she didn't know much about what kind of policies her hero proposes or, in other words, how (if at all) her hero proposes to make her life any better or worse. Another friend, this one in India, vowed that he would be a very good president, given that his speeches were so great. She too had no clue about what he stands for and what "change" he proposes to bring. What was even more strange, is that she had never followed any election in India with a fraction of interest she has devoted to the American one. Would they be sitting amid the spectators with folded hands and moist eyes if given a chance? Something tells me they might.

I have nothing for or against Barack Obama. I know too little about him to have an opinion. The only thing I was interested in was whether there would be a change in US foreign policy (The White House has categorically stated that there would not be any change - no matter who the president is. Now that says a lot about how much influence an US president has in his own office, doesn't it?)

What I find amazing - and scary (for the lack of a better word) - is the herd mentality of the Americans when it comes to what they think is patriotism. They will first elect George W. Bush - after having lived through the 1991 Gulf War debacle created by his father - then denounce his blunders in Aa-ee-rak, re-elect him for a second term and give him more time and money to continue with his pet project.

The devotees of the American presidential elections may point and sneer at the numerous, embarrassing failings of the Indian democracy. But are the shortcomings of one system good enough to justify the failures in another?

So, India got its first Olympic gold. Or maybe, I should say, Abhinav Bindra got his first Olympic gold. Am not sure what India’s contribution has been in Bindra’s achievement – Bindra’s father had built his son a shooting range at home – and therefore I don’t know whether it should be called a national victory.
Someone compared it to India winning the 1983 cricket World Cup. That would mean no Indian would be winning an Olympic gold in the next 25 years at least.
Let’s be honest. How many of us had heard of Bindra before the morning of August 11, 2008? And today he is a national hero.
He is a hero. He is an Indian. But am still balking at calling it an Indian victory.
It would have been an Indian victory if the country had given him a shooting range, equipment and expertise to win the gold and not his father.

On the four-hour bus ride today, there sat an obnoxious man in the seat behind me for most of the journey. For an irritatingly large part of the ride, he bellowed into his cellphone, speaking to one “client” after another. The man claimed to be the “director” of a “crushing” company – stone crushing I gathered – that was the “market leader”. It’s a different matter that several people he called could not identify who he was.

Apart from the fact that he used sugar-coated “Hellojis” for one category of people – and even invited himself for elusive lunches and dinners – and snapped at his “MBA” employee for not making enough calls, he got on my nerves simply because of his utter disregard for fellow travellers.

He was not the only one to talk one the cellphone. The woman next to me did. The guy across the aisle did. They were almost inaudible. The fellow behind me amply made up for everyone else.

Yes, I should have turned around and asked him – Mr Nagesh, as he repeated for the nth time – to pipe down.

The man, I must say, is not an exception either. And it’s not the ambient noise that makes the likes of him holler into their cellphones. For the lack of a better excuse, I think it’s just the way they are: they think the people around them are not worth considering.

And it is up to us to remind them once in a while that they are wrong.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have grandparents.

I have, of course, had grandparents. But I was too young to know them well... or well enough. And they weren't around for too long. There was, however, no dirth of great-aunts and great-uncles in our extended family. Interactions with them - on occasions when that rather large extended family got together - were limited to "Oh look! How you've grown!", accompanied by immediate concern over my scrawny self. On my part there were, usually, embarrassed mumblings and a close scrutiny of my toes as they wriggled uneasily.

But among those many great-aunts and great-uncles there were some who were genuinely loveable and others greatly avoidable.

My last grandparent passed away when I was 11. So I can safely say that I did most of my growing-up without one. And there were times when I felt that having one of the loveable great-aunts as a grand-parent would be rather fun. I even envied (a tad bit) the cousins who had these loveable great-aunts as their own grandparent.

As growing-up (the physical part, i.e) drew to an end and I hurtled into college life, I heard of several grandparents from my friends. Marriages being pushed onto their plates, careers being vetoed, clothes being sneered at... And then, sometimes, I thanked my stars that I didn't have a grand parent like their's.

Now, I almost surprise myself by missing my grandparents sometimes - not all of them though. I think it would have been rather nice to have them around. Perhaps because I have learnt a little more about them, perhaps because I know I am old enough to have my way when I know it's right, perhaps because I think it would be fun to exchange notes with a wisened, old soul once in a while.

I wish a couple of them had not left as soon as they did.

A question: Why do women with curly hair invariably straighten it out?
So far, I know just one woman who has not. And I think she looks best the way she is.
Everywhere I look: at work, on the road, on the train, every single newsreader on television... women have straightened hair. For instance, someone I see everyday had really curly, short hair and she was really imaginative about the way she did it up. I thought it added a lot to her character - positively. She looked distinct. And then, one day, she straightened it out. And she looked like every other woman with straightened hair. Now why would she do that?
What makes it worse is the fact that no matter how good a job, it always looks artificial. You know that it is not naturally straight.

Well... guess it's just one of the unexplained reasons why women want to look like the next one.

Sometimes - specially when I am too bored even to read a book - I get the feeling that I should be more social. You know, go out with friends (lots of them), party, visit people, be nice to them... do everything that social people usually do. I see smiling and laughing faces - usually in pubs, discs and restaurants - looking at me from photographs, in attempts to remind me of what I am missing out on. There are a few twitches of doubt within. Why on earth am I not in those photographs?

A few more of those photographs later, I am itching to do something else - anything else. And no, it's not because the twitching doubt got worse.

The years have made me very (almost irritatingly) picky. I am picky about everything - clothes, shoes, books, the colour of my wall, my work and... gradually I realised... my friends. There was a time - long time back, though - when I would move in a group. That's where I felt comfortable. I wanted to be liked.

Somewhere down the line, I felt that it was not worth it. And now I firmly believe it. I get bored of the wrong human company faster than any other thing in the world.

As school turned to college and college to post-graduation, I let go of some of my closest friends without a morsel of regret or doubt. I knew I was better off, if not happier, without them. It was made easier, I think, by the fact that I was never really emotionally dependent on any of them for anything.

The friends that I have today may not be in the same city or even in the same time zone. We may not be in touch for days. And yet, they are some of the best people I have ever known.

Those who were shaken off were crud.

I read Waiting for Rain (Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s translated into English) in the summer of 2005. It was the first book that I read while travelling in municipal buses and autorickshaws, while standing in a queue for railways tickets and every possible place where I could collect some uninterrupted reading time. Reading the book was like watching a sepia-tinted movie. I could see Soumitra Chatterjee and Aparna Sen in the Calcutta of 1960s-70s as the words spilled out. Reading the book was an experience like never before and – now that it’s part of the past – since.

It is also the only book that I ever bought a second copy of, thanks to a colleague who never returned it. I haven’t re-read the book, but seeing it on my shelf I relive the experience all over again.

Looking back, I also believe that reading Waiting for Rain was so intensely gripping for a few reasons apart from the book itself. The fact that I was waiting for it to rain as well – the dry, parched, hot summer had seemed to stretch itself over unending, unbearable weeks – was one factor. The other was seeing Soumitra-Aparna as I read. No, the book was not made into a film, least of all with this lead pair. But they seemed to fit in so darned perfectly that they were all I could see.

Moving back a bit in time… One of the songs that B loved was Dil ke armaan aansuyon mein beh gaye. He had said that he remembered the song not so much for itself, but because he had heard it once while sitting in an empty train outside an obscure station in Bihar. It was nighttime, the train was empty and the song – soft and faraway – had wafted in from nowhere. It had reflected a lot of what was on his mind, he had said. Hence the fondness.

A lot of what we hold close to ourselves, it seems, is not because of those things alone, but the circumstances under which we experience them.

And why am I writing about this? The monsoon hit the southern coast of Kerala today.

I have been wondering for a while what next to write here. Nothing really earth-shattering happens... except the sleep-rattling thud on my door every morning, hurled by the woman who comes to collect the garbage.
And then a long chat happened with a friend far away. Whirlwind wedding plans, nagging, irritating would-be in-laws, expenses to be met, a thesis to be completed... yet another friend, yet another thesis, another set of getting-on-your-nerves in-laws...
My life is so predictably unexciting that sometimes it's almost embarrassing!

The decision to take the train back from Andheri was a bad one. Knew it the minute I reached the station and stood in queue (yes, Bombay is the only place in India I have seen so far where queues form by themselves).
It was hot, humid, crowded, noisy and my fresh linen shirt was fast plastering itself to my back. The only creature at peace with it all was a large shaggy brown stray, lying on the cool cement floor, beneath a fan, while the harried humans stepped gingerly over its snout, paws and tail.
Twenty minutes later, I was on the platform, waiting for the train. Being horribly late to work was not on my mind. Getting to the air-conditioned office was.
The train was not crowded (by Bombay standards) and the breeze through the door was some relief. Then, a couple of women boarded, with their children in tow. And that was the end of my moment of peace.
While the boy – about eight years old – constantly yelled threats to his mother if she did not buy him what he wanted, the other kid (no idea whether it was a girl or a boy) was squirming in its mother’s arms, grabbing at everything from the overhead handles, a vendor’s goods to another passenger’s sari. All this, while the mothers smiled and looked on indulgently, till the squirming kid grabbed at something and was met with a sharp whack on its hand.
A small hell broke lose. Adding to the heat and sweat, was an unearthly shriek. The kid was jiggled violently in an attempt to silence it. As almost always, it failed.
By the time I was at Mahim, walking down to work, I was hating Bombay more than I have in a while. It is a city where people have stopped being humans almost, I thought. Nothing affects them. The heat, the rain, the crowds, the inhuman living and travelling conditions… nothing. That’s the only way of life they know, and they think it’s normal.
I was trudging past homes held together on pavements, in abandoned sewage pipes. Rags hung from every nook and cranny, women sat making cane baskets, the surrounding road and pavement an extension of their lives. When suddenly, a toddler – with a wide grin showing just the two front teeth – ran out squealing and laughing. Arms flaying as it kept balance, the kid ran on bare, dirty feet towards me, as a young boy, as mirthful and as dirty, ran up from behind. The boy caught up and scooped up the kid in his thin hands and danced it around. The kid threw back its head and laughed its toothless laugh again. Another boy, slightly older than the first and wearing a ring in one ear, also turned up and between the two of them, they swung the toddler along by its arms as they walked ahead of me.
The three were laughing in the hot afternoon sun (or were they laughing at it?), walking bare feet on the burning asphalt.
I realized that I was smiling, and not because the sea breeze had detached my shirt from my back.

Sometime back, there was a newspaper column that, among other things, said something like:

“First there was self respect, then there was Wikipedia.”

I thought it was a smart line, apart from being true of course. But it was not until an online chat that I realized its extent of painful accuracy.

On this fateful chat, I was asked about the pros and cons of education abroad. I said that it was not entirely true that getting a foreign degree helps to bag the dream job and that it makes more sense (in some disciplines) to pursue it for what it would do to your education and knowledge rather than your pay packet.

“Do it if you want to learn something for yourself” is what I wrote.

Pat came the reply: “For that, I have google.”

I had nothing to say after.

So, there is a whole host of people out there – dangerously young and ambitious – who would put classroom education (at the Masters’ level mind you) at par with doing a search on Google?

I wish the answer would be ‘no’. But, when I look at knowledge and awareness levels around myself, I can’t help feeling that it is a resounding and depressing ‘yes’.

Have started writing again... simply for the sake of it. It's ironical in a way. England was where I thought I would have all the time to muse, mull and make stories, not Bombay. But this city, with its dust, distance and dirty trains is keeping me more at home than I had expected. Going out, it seems, needs to be planned a week in advance if you want to make things comfortable. Of course, the definition of comfort is very subjective (and thank God for that!). If there is just one thing that makes Bombay acceptable, it's the people. Everything else is best lived through by holding your breath and shutting tight your eyes.

Do I hate Bombay then? I don't know. So far, I have no reason to like it.